· The words government and security sit uneasily together at present, of course. Most worrying in the light of recent events is the recurring loss of vital data. This is a serious business, isn't it, Ms Blears? If the public grows wary of vouchsafing anything to officials, so do our MPs. We are told that members on the defence select committee who will visit the Middle East next week were asked for assurances from the MoD that they are fit and well to go. All were ordered to see a MoD doctor for a health check. But half the committee refused, mainly because of fears that the details, once secured, would end up on the 6.30pm express to Shoeburyness. The MoD will have to rely on assurances from the MPs that they are fit enough to make the trip. Still, they can always lose the itinerary.

· But then, we all make mistakes. Pity the poor TV director who broadcast the German singing of the national anthem at Euro 2008 on Monday, subtitled with the lyrics "Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles", part of the first verse beloved by the Nazis that was banished on the fall of the Third Reich. These events should bring us together. But it's one step forward, then two back.

· All hands to the pump for Gordon, with the Tories riding high and the economy going south. He needs blue sky thinking. Could this be the rationale behind Des O'Connor's CBE? In his diaries, Alastair Campbell explains the Des effect. He has seen it. It works. "The aim was to ask friendly questions and get TB to deliver a few anecdotes, eg, running away from school, about the time when he failed to recognise Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands talking to him in a queue, etc," he recalls. "I said I could not believe he could not lift himself into a positive mindset about it, but by now he had the hump with me." Come the encounter, things perked up. They met Barbra Streisand in makeup, and then Des himself. "He was much more charismatic than I imagined, had real presence," says Campbell. As for TB, he did fine. "Well even, and the audience really went for it. I said to him in the car it would connect with more people for longer than anything else he had done in ages." This was prescient, for the next day no one bothered with prisons, or crime or fiscal policy. The only subject was Tony in Des's glow. "I owe you a big apology," he conceded to Campbell afterwards. That was 1996, but Des is still a player. Host of Countdown, king of chat. His agent is the John Miles Organisation. The worst they can say is no.

· Things can't be helped by the fact that Labour may lose its deposit at the Henley by-election next week. But there is, as ever, a silver lining for Martin Salter, the Reading West MP who is minding the Labour team. He is using the campaign to torment "the evil environment agency", some of whose locks are located in the lovely riverside town. And why would he do that? Because the agency is planning to spend £10m on a new HQ in Bristol - and to drum up a few bob to pay for it, it will sell off lock-keepers' tied cottages, which have graced the Thames since the days of Three Men in a Boat. Keepers' wives, always a fearsome bunch, joined Salter's team in Henley's marketplace at the weekend. "This a cross-party issue," he said. Their words were probably fruitier.

· Who would be Simon Mann, the mercenary facing trial on coup-plotting charges amid inexplicably tight security in Equatorial Guinea? Even journalists fell victim to the paranoia. Reporters were virtually strip-searched. The accused, meanwhile, appears shackled, hands and feet. Yesterday he further implicated Mark Thatcher in the plot, and here, we are contacted by a reader who says that on Tuesday in the Guardian, Mann appeared to be wearing fur-lined handcuffs. Does the Ann Summers chain have some kind of contract with the government there, he asks? The company says not. But doubtless there's a market for this sort of thing.

· Finally, in Telegraph-land, there is crisis. "Why is it so hard to find anywhere that sells hatpins," a reader asks. And you know, they're right. This damned Labour government.